Download or read book Black Holes A Very Short Introduction written by Katherine Blundell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black holes are a source of wide fascination. In this Very Short Introduction, Katherine Blundell addresses a variety of questions, including what a black hole actually is, how they are characterised and discovered, to what happens if you get too close to one. Explaining how black holes formand grow across cosmic time, as well as how many there are in the Universe, she also considers how black holes interact with matter - by stealing material that belongs to other stars, and how black holes give rise to quasars and other spectacular, yet exotic phenomena in outer space.
Download or read book Stars A Very Short Introduction written by Andrew King and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every atom of our bodies has been part of a star. Our very own star, the Sun, is crucial to the development and sustainability of life on Earth. This Very Short Introduction presents a modern, authoritative examination of how stars live, producing all the chemical elements beyond helium, and how they die, sometimes spectacularly, to end as remnants such as black holes. Andrew King shows how understanding the stars is key to understanding the galaxies they inhabit, and thus the history of our entire Universe, as well as the existence of planets like our own. King presents a fascinating exploration of the science of stars, from the mechanisms that allow stars to form and the processes that allow them to shine, as well as the results of their inevitable death. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Relativity A Very Short Introduction written by Russell Stannard and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008-07-24 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Einstein's theory of relativity shattered the world of physics - replacing Newtonian ideas of space and time with bizarre and counterintuitive conclusions: a world of slowing clocks and stretched space, black holes and curved space-time. This Very Short Introduction explores and explains the theory in an accessible and understandable way.
Download or read book Introduction to General Relativity Black Holes and Cosmology written by Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A precise yet simple introduction to the foundations and main consequences of General Relativity. The first five chapters from Choquet-Bruhat's General Relativity and the Einstein Equations (2008) have been updated with new sections and chapters on black holes, gravitational waves, singularities and more to form this textbook.
Download or read book Introduction to Black Hole Physics written by Valeri P. Frolov and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is a black hole? How many of them are in our Universe? Can black holes be created in a laboratory or in particle colliders? Can objects similar to black holes be used for space and time travel? This book discusses these and many other questions providing the reader with the tools required to explore the Black Hole Land independently.
Download or read book Astrophysics written by James Binney and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astrophysics is said to have been born when Isaac Newton saw an apple drop in his orchard and had the electrifying insight that the Moon falls just like that apple. James Binney shows how the application of physical laws derived on Earth allows us to understand objects that exist on the far side of the Universe.
Download or read book Black Holes and Time Warps written by Kip S Thorne and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1994 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Rhorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking.
Download or read book Gravity A Very Short Introduction written by Timothy Clifton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-16 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gravity is one of the four fundamental interactions that exist in nature. It also has the distinction of being the oldest, weakest, and most difficult force to quantize. Understanding gravity is not only essential for understanding the motion of objects on Earth, but also the motion of all celestial objects, and even the expansion of the Universe itself. It was the study of gravity that led Einstein to his profound realisations about the nature of space and time. Gravity is not only universal, it is also essential for understanding the behaviour of the Universe, and all astrophysical bodies within it. In this Very Short Introduction Timothy Clifton looks at the development of our understanding of gravity since the early observations of Kepler and Newtonian theory. He discusses Einstein's theory of gravity, which now supplants Newton's, showing how it allows us to understand why the frequency of light changes as it passes through a gravitational field, why GPS satellites need their clocks corrected as they orbit the Earth, and why the orbits of distant neutron stars speed up. Today, almost 100 years after Einstein published his theory of gravity, we have even detected the waves of gravitational radiation that he predicted. Clifton concludes by considering the testing and application of general relativity in astrophysics and cosmology, and looks at dark energy and efforts such as string theory to combine gravity with quantum mechanics. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book The Story of Collapsing Stars written by Pankaj S. Joshi and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book journeys into one of the most fascinating intellectual adventures of recent decades - understanding and exploring the final fate of massive collapsing stars in the universe. The issue is of great interest in fundamental physics and cosmology today, from both the perspective of gravitation theory and of modern astrophysical observations. This is a revolution in the making and may be intimately connected to our search for a unified understanding of the basic forces of nature, namely gravity that governs the cosmological universe, and the microscopic forces that include quantum phenomena. According to the general theory of relativity, a massive star that collapses catastrophically under its own gravity when it runs out of its internal nuclear fuel must give rise to a space-time singularity. Such singularities are regions in the universe where all physical quantities take their extreme values and become arbitrarily large. The singularities may be covered within a black hole, or visible to faraway observers in the universe. Thus, the final fate of a collapsing massive star is either a black hole or a visible naked singularity. We discuss here recent results and developments on the gravitational collapse of massive stars and possible observational implications when naked singularities happen in the universe. Large collapsing massive stars and the resulting space-time singularities may even provide a laboratory in the cosmos where one could test the unification possibilities of basic forces of nature.
Download or read book Galaxies A Very Short Introduction written by John Gribbin and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating Very Short Introduction, popular science writer John Gribben tells the story of our growing understanding of galaxies, from the days before Galileo to our present-day observations of our many hundreds of millions of galactic neighbors. Not only are galaxies fascinating astronomical structures in themselves, but their study has revealed much of what we know today about the cosmos, providing a window on the Big Bang and the origins of the Universe. Gribben looks at our own "Milky Way" Galaxy in detail, from the different kinds of stars that are born within it, to the origins of its magnificent spiral structure. Perhaps most interesting, Gribben describes the many exciting discoveries have been made about our own galaxy and about those beyond: how a supermassive black hole lurks at the center of every galaxy, how enormous forces are released when galaxies collide, how distant galaxies provide a window on the early Universe, and how the formation of young galaxies shed needed light on the mysteries of Cold Dark Matter. John Gribbin is one of the best-known current popular science writers. His many books include the acclaimed The Universe: A Biography, In Search of Schrodinger's Cat, and Science: A History. He has written for many newspapers and regularly contributes to radio and television documentaries and debates, and also writes science fiction novels. He formerly worked for Nature and New Scientist and is presently a Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex. 1. A Very Short Introduction 2. The Great Debate 3. Our Island 4. The Expanding Universe 5. Across the Universe 6. The Origin of Galaxies 7. The Universe at Large References & Further Reading Index
Download or read book Black Holes The Reith Lectures written by Stephen Hawking and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-05-05 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It is said that fact is sometimes stranger than fiction, and nowhere is that more true than in the case of black holes. Black holes are stranger than anything dreamed up by science fiction writers.” In 2016 Professor Stephen Hawking delivered the BBC Reith Lectures on a subject that fascinated him for decades – black holes. In these flagship lectures the legendary physicist argued that if we could only understand black holes and how they challenge the very nature of space and time, we could unlock the secrets of the universe.
Download or read book Black Holes written by Derek J. Raine and published by Imperial College Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This introduction to the fascinating subject of black holes fills a significant gap in the literature which exists between popular, non-mathematical expositions and advanced textbooks at the research level. It is designed for advanced undergraduates and first year postgraduates as a useful stepping-stone to the advanced literature. The book provides an accessible introduction to the exact solutions of Einstein's vacuum field equations describing spherical and axisymmetric (rotating) black holes. The geometry and physical properties of these spacetimes are explored through the motion of particles and light. The use of different coordinate systems, maximal extensions and Penrose diagrams is explained. The association of the surface area of a black hole with its entropy is discussed and it is shown that with the introduction of quantum mechanics black holes cease to be black and can radiate. This result allows black holes to satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and thus be consistent with the rest of physics. In this new edition the problems in each chapter have been revised and solutions are provided. The text has been expanded to include new material on wormholes and clarify various other issues.
Download or read book An Introduction to Black Holes Information and the String Theory Revolution written by Leonard Susskind and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - A unique exposition of the foundations of the quantum theory of black holes including the impact of string theory, the idea of black hole complementarily and the holographic principle bull; Aims to educate the physicist or student of physics who is not an expert on string theory, on the revolution that has grown out of black hole physics and string theory
Download or read book Believing Bullshit written by Stephen Law and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book identifies eight key mechanisms that can transform a set of ideas into a psychological flytrap. The author suggests that, like the black holes of outer space, from which nothing, not even light, can escape, our contemporary cultural landscape contains numerous intellectual black-holes—belief systems constructed in such a way that unwary passers-by can similarly find themselves drawn in. While such self-sealing bubbles of belief will most easily trap the gullible or poorly educated, even the most intelligent and educated of us are potentially vulnerable. Some of the world’s greatest thinkers have fallen in, never to escape. This witty, insightful critique will help immunize readers against the wiles of cultists, religious and political zealots, conspiracy theorists, promoters of flaky alternative medicines, and others by clearly setting out the tricks of the trade by which such insidious belief systems are created and maintained.
Download or read book Moons A Very Short Introduction written by David A. Rothery and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proving to be both varied and fascinating, moons are far more common than planets in our Solar System. Our own Moon has had a profound influence on Earth, not only through tidal effects, but even on the behaviour of some marine animals. Many remarkable things have been discovered about the moons of the giant outer planets from Voyager, Galileo, Cassini, and other spacecraft. Scientists have glimpsed volcanic activity on Io, found oceans of water on Titan, and captured photos of icy geysers bursting from Enceladus. It looks likely that microbial life beyond the Earth may be discovered on a moon rather than a planet. In this Very Short Introduction David Rothery introduces the reader to the moons of our Solar System, beginning with the early discoveries of Galileo and others, describing their variety of mostly mythological names, and the early use of Jupiter's moons to establish position at sea and to estimate the speed of light. Rothery discusses the structure, formation, and influence of our Moon, and those of the other planets, and ends with the recent discovery of moons orbiting asteroids, whilst looking forward to the possibility of finding moons of exoplanets in planetary systems far beyond our own. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book Introduction to Black Hole Astrophysics written by Gustavo E. Romero and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-09-14 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based on the lecture notes of a one-semester course on black hole astrophysics given by the author and is aimed at advanced undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in astrophysics. The material included goes beyond that found in classic textbooks and presents details on astrophysical manifestations of black holes. In particular, jet physics and detailed accounts of objects like microquasars, active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, and ultra-luminous X-ray sources are covered, as well as advanced topics like black holes in alternative theories of gravity. The author avoids unnecessary technicalities and to some degree the book is self-contained. The reader will find some basic general relativity tools in Chapter 1. The appendices provide some additional mathematical details that will be useful for further study, and a guide to the bibliography on the subject.
Download or read book The Little Book of Black Holes written by Steven S. Gubser and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dive into a mind-bending exploration of the physics of black holes Black holes, predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity more than a century ago, have long intrigued scientists and the public with their bizarre and fantastical properties. Although Einstein understood that black holes were mathematical solutions to his equations, he never accepted their physical reality—a viewpoint many shared. This all changed in the 1960s and 1970s, when a deeper conceptual understanding of black holes developed just as new observations revealed the existence of quasars and X-ray binary star systems, whose mysterious properties could be explained by the presence of black holes. Black holes have since been the subject of intense research—and the physics governing how they behave and affect their surroundings is stranger and more mind-bending than any fiction. After introducing the basics of the special and general theories of relativity, this book describes black holes both as astrophysical objects and theoretical “laboratories” in which physicists can test their understanding of gravitational, quantum, and thermal physics. From Schwarzschild black holes to rotating and colliding black holes, and from gravitational radiation to Hawking radiation and information loss, Steven Gubser and Frans Pretorius use creative thought experiments and analogies to explain their subject accessibly. They also describe the decades-long quest to observe the universe in gravitational waves, which recently resulted in the LIGO observatories’ detection of the distinctive gravitational wave “chirp” of two colliding black holes—the first direct observation of black holes’ existence. The Little Book of Black Holes takes readers deep into the mysterious heart of the subject, offering rare clarity of insight into the physics that makes black holes simple yet destructive manifestations of geometric destiny.
